We’ve all learned that social media is a great way to spread the content we’ve worked so hard to create. Social media shares are like free advertising, but even better because people find endorsements from their friends to be much more credible than advertising. So how do we decide which social media buttons to include?

Don’t Have Too Many Buttons

For some website managers, the solution is to include every social media button that exists, but doing this could cause you to end up with fewer social media shares. Here’s why:

Too many social media buttons can slow down your website, which will hurt your Google rankings and increase your website’s bounce rate.
More options mean that your visitors will have a harder time choosing which network to use.According to Quick Sprout, people are more likely to click one of your social sharing buttons when you give them three or four options instead of five or more. And they recommend only using four buttons if you have more than 50,000 monthly visitors.

Which Buttons Should You Use?

Now that you know how many buttons to use, it’s time to decide which ones are right for your website. This process isn’t one-size-fits-all, though. The right choice for one website won’t necessarily be the right one for another site.

To help you decide which buttons to use, look into your analytics tools to see which social media sites refer the most traffic to your website. While you’re at it, think critically about the demographic of your ideal visitors. Are they businessmen in their 50s? Maybe offering a LinkedIn share button could help spread your message. Are they 35-year-old housewives who love to craft? Try having a “Pin It” button so they can share your post on Pinterest.

We have a number of clients who are lawyers, so we know what website factors work best in converting their clicks into solid clients. Here are our top three tips for increasing conversions on a lawyer’s website:

Tell a personal story: It’s important for a lawyer’s audience see they are a real person who has really helped people. On the bio page, instead of writing, “We won a dog bite client $500,000,” write the story of a single mother of two who was bitten by a neighbor’s pit bull, had to have two facial surgeries and couldn’t work for months, but you got her and her family the compensation she deserved. Real stories resonate with potential clients and let them see you can help them through their situation as well.

Use videos: Those who are going to a lawyer’s website have been through a tragedy of some sort. They are most likely wary, and not ready to trust just anyone with their case. Through high-quality, well-produced videos, you can introduce yourself to your potential clients and allow them to see that you are well-spoken and an expert at what you do. This helps your clients feel more comfortable calling you since they feel they already met you.

Strong calls to action: We wrote previously about how it doesn’t matter if you have an exquisite website, strong content and amazing SEO, if you don’t have a good call to action your clicks aren’t going to convert. Make sure you have a call to action above the fold, easy to see and connects with users. We have found that click to chats and offering free case evaluations have worked well in converting potential clients.

Check out our legal clients’ websites on our portfolio page to see how we used personal stories, videos and calls to action to increase their conversions. If you want more conversions, contact Fahrenheit Marketing today to set-up a consultation.

In this week’s Follow Friday, we are sharing some of the Web designers and resources Fahrenheit’s talented Web designers follow. Here are our top five Web designers who educate and inspire us:

1. Vitaly Friedman (@smashingmag)

Vitaly Friedman is the editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine, which is an online magazine for Web designers and developers. We love reading his tweets, which share helpful, hip Web design articles and tips.

2. Chris Spooner (@chrisspooner)

Chris Spooner says he is a creative designer, avid blogger and is crazy about pretty colors and shapes. His Twitter stream is so full of informative Web design talk that we wonder if he ever stops thinking about Web design.

4. Christopher Murphey and Nicklass Persson (@standardistas)

These two are interactive design lecturers at the University of Ulster. Their Twitter profile says it all: “Two tweed-clad gentlemen based in Belfast, we write about design, Web standards and assorted miscellany in a daily periodical you might enjoy reading.” We always learn something new after reading their well-researched and written articles.

5. My Modern Metropolis (@mymodernmet)

We love to get inspiration from My Modern Metropolis. It’s a site full of amazing photography and art that fellow artists and designers share to spark creativity. If we ever get a creative block, we just peruse their Twitter stream and new ideas start to flood in.

Everyone knows they should be on social media and using it to get customers, but how exactly do you do that? To help you use the ever-growing world of social media to your advantage, here are three tips on finding customers through social channels:

1. Search them out.

Instead of waiting for customers to find you, find them. Through services like TweetDeck and Hootsuite, you can set up a variety of Twitter searches to see if anyone is talking about your company, or to get a handle on what kind of products your customer base is interested in. For instance, if you are starting a Thai restaurant, set up a search in your geocode and use specific keywords such as “love Thai food” and tweet those who love Thai food about your new restaurant. Or you can see what kind of Thai dishes people say they love and try to incorporate it into the menu.

2. Have a contest.

As we mentioned in a previous post, giving away products or having contests that engage your customers also helps you build up your customer base. But remember the point of the contests isn’t just to get more fans or likes, but to get devoted fans. So keep your contests targeted to the specific audience you want as customers and offer prizes that relate to your company.

3. Make the most of each social channel.

If you put the same posts on all your social channels, no one needs to follow you on all of them. Each social platform has its unique attributes that you can capitalize on to help your company. Posting an image on Facebook gets more shares than posting one on Twitter. It’s easier to have a conversation on Twitter and answer specific customer questions than on Facebook. Foursquare is perfect for giving special offers to those who check-in to your business. Before you post or tweet, make sure you are sharing the message on the best social channel for it.

For a few years now, it’s been common practice among employers to check out the social media profiles of potential hires before they’re brought into the company. But can a boss fire a current employee for things they say on the internet?

According to the National Labor Relations Board: sometimes.

The NLRB has made it illegal for companies to adopt broad social media policies that discourage workers from exercising their right to communicate with one another for the aim of improving wages, benefits or working conditions.

A case in New York demonstrates how the ruling could be applied. At Hispanics United of Buffalo, a non-profit social services provider, one of the caseworkers threatened to complain to her boss that the other caseworkers weren’t working hard enough. Another worker posted a Facebook status asking, “My fellow co-workers, how do you feel?” Four other caseworkers responded to the post in angry, sometimes expletive-ridden comments.

All five employees were fired from the organization for harassing a co-worker. However, in a 3-1 decision, the labor board decided that caseworkers had been unlawfully terminated. The posts, said the board, were the sorts of “concerted activity” for “mutual aid” protected by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

In other cases, however, the board was not quite so forgiving.

Frustrated by a slow evening for news, a police reporter for the Arizona Daily Star tweeted several comments, including “What?!?!?! No overnight homicide. … You’re slacking, Tucson.” He was subsequently fired from the newspaper. The NLRB found his dismissal legal because the comments were offensive and not about working conditions.

The rulings have been criticized by some who say the NLRB is trying to apply progressive era policies to 21st century realities, and sometimes not very successfully. The labor board counters, however, that social media has become the new ‘water cooler’ of the workplace and that the board is protecting employees’ right to complain about working conditions just like it did in the heyday of the unions.

In the end, the lesson most of us can take from the controversy is that it’s worth your while to be careful on social media. Nothing is private on Facebook or Twitter and what you say online can come back to haunt you.

So the next time you tweet about being bored at work, take a moment to consider the following questions. Is your boredom a legally-protected coercion with other workers about improving wages, benefits or working conditions? Or is it time-stamped proof that you’re a lazy worker (and dumb enough to let your boss know)?

To learn more about the new social media rulings, check out Steven Greenhouse’s excellent New York Times article.